A Hero's Welcome

On one level Nelson Mandela is merely a man of extraordinary courage whose commitment to racial justice never flagged during 27 years in South African prisons. In another sense he is a "loyal and disciplined member" of the African National Congress, a dedicated revolutionary who humbly submits to the collective leadership of the antiapartheid group. But on a more transcendent plane, where history is made and myths are forged, Mandela is a hero, a man, like those described by author Joseph Campbell, who has emerged from a symbolic grave "reborn, made great and filled with creative power."

In this era of cynicism, such legendary figures have all but disappeared in the U.S. Martyrdom at an early age was necessary to lift John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to the status of secular saints. Mandela is unique among heroes because he is a living embodiment of black liberation. Like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer enjoying their own eulogies from a hiding place in the church, he can bathe in the adulation of a worldwide throng yearning to, if not touch the hem of his garment, at least catch a glimpse of him whirring by in a motorcade.

Mandela may lack the rousing, bred-in-the-pulpit style of black orators like King or Jesse Jackson. His soft-spoken manner and unflappable dignity bespeak his background as a lawyer, a single-minded political organizer and a longtime prisoner still blinking a bit in the spotlight. But Mandela's magnetism is palpable, the consequence of his endurance and determination in the fight against South Africa's white-minority government. He fires the pride of African Americans and touches a deep desire in the psyche of Americans both black and white for a leader who might rekindle the biracial coalition that destroyed their country's own version of apartheid a generation ago, then fell apart during the long, hot summers of the '60s.

Such yearnings help explain the torrent of emotion that erupted when Mandela arrived in New York City last week on the first leg of a twelve-day, eight- city U.S. tour. For one brief, wistful moment, a city that had been pounded by a series of violent racial incidents seemed to vibrate with one voice shouting "Mandela!" More than 750,000 people lined the streets of lower Manhattan as Mandela sped by in a bulletproof glass chamber borne on a flatbed truck. At a rally on the steps of City Hall, Mandela was presented with the key to the city by Mayor David Dinkins, one of the five African-American mayors who will welcome him on his trip (a sixth, Marion Barry of Washington, will be too embroiled in his trial on drug-possession and perjury charges to take part in his city's celebration).

The next day Mandela captivated more than 3,000 people gathered at Riverside Church by joining in an exuberant rendition of the toyi-toyi, a South African dance of celebration. That night 100,000 people jammed Harlem's Africa Square, content to gaze at the visiting hero whose voice could barely be heard over a feeble public-address system. Later, 50,000 cheered Mandela at a rally in Yankee Stadium, where he delighted his audience by donning a baseball cap and declaring, "You now know who I am. I am a Yankee!"

Despite its resemblance to a superstar tour, Mandela's visit to the U.S. has a deeply serious purpose. His objective is to shore up the A.N.C.'s negotiating position as it enters into talks with South African President F.W. de Klerk about the shape of a new constitution that would for the first time enfranchise the 26 million blacks who represent 68% of South Africa's population. Mandela is seeking assurances that the U.S. will not prematurely loosen the economic sanctions it imposed on Pretoria in 1986. He is also looking for "money in buckets" to help the A.N.C., unbanned in February for the first time in 29 years, change from a militant underground force to an aboveground political organization.

But just as Mandela is seeking something from Americans, Americans are seeking something from him. Politicians hurry to pose with him, community leaders draw inspiration -- and status -- from his proximity, longtime antiapartheid activists take satisfaction from the mere sight of him. For a sometimes dispirited American civil rights coalition, Mandela provides, as he has before, a rallying point and common cause. For the many blacks who have begun to call themselves African Americans, he is a flesh-and-blood exemplar of what an African can be. For Americans of all colors, weary of their nation's perennial racial standoffs, his visit offers the opportunity for a full-throated expression of their no less perennial hope for reconciliation.

If Mandela can serve all those purposes, it is partly because for so long he remained an unknown quantity. Emerging from the enforced silence of a prison cell, he arrived in the U.S. more as a symbol of courage and hope than as a politician with well-known positions. Even when his positions were unequivocally stated, they were sometimes overlooked last week. New York Mayor David Dinkins could hail his guest as "a man of peace," a title that acknowledges Mandela's exemplary lack of bitterness toward his former captors, while sidestepping his refusal to disown violence as a means of effecting political change in South Africa.

Mandela heartened Americans by emphasizing that he envisioned a multiracial future for his country, with full respect for the rights of the white minority. He promised potential investors that their ventures would be welcome in a South Africa in which everyone, regardless of race, had the vote. Nonetheless, some of his remarks inevitably drew him into the maelstrom of U.S. politics.

Even before he arrived in New York, there were rumblings among American Jews about Mandela's praise for the Palestine Liberation Organization. He has met with Yasser Arafat three times since his release from prison in February. Much of that concern had been put to rest -- or at least diplomatically laid aside -- after a June 10 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, at which Mandela assured a contingent of American Jewish leaders that he supported Israel's right to exist within secure borders. There was no such comfort for Cuban Americans in Miami, where Mandela is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. They are threatening to stage demonstrations against Mandela's expressions of gratitude for Fidel Castro's support during Mandela's years of imprisonment.

The contretemps with Jews threatened to flare anew after a televised "town meeting" presided over by Nightline's Ted Koppel. Mandela had kind words again for Arafat, Castro and even Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. They "support our struggle to the hilt," was his explanation. When asked about the human-rights shortcomings of Libya and Cuba, Mandela retorted that the A.N.C. had "no time to be looking to the internal affairs of other countries."

Jewish groups, at least, have been muted in their response thus far, and are unlikely to mount large protests during the remainder of Mandela's trip. That will remove one potential complication from the hastily arranged tour. It was only on May 11 that 70 supporters of the antiapartheid movement, including activists, politicians, labor leaders and business people, convened in Washington to discuss arrangements. That led to the formation of an organizing committee headed by Randall Robinson, executive director of the antiapartheid group TransAfrica; Lindiwe Mabuza, chief representative of the A.N.C. in the U.S.; and the singer Harry Belafonte. Long before Mandela left Johannesburg on June 4 for Botswana, the first stop on his tour, they were deluged with requests for appearances and meetings. So many of the entreaties were honored that two weeks ago A.N.C. leaders in the Zambian capital of Lusaka requested that the tour be pared down.

The eight U.S. cities that were finally named as stopovers were chosen to serve various purposes. New York, Los Angeles and Washington were foregone conclusions -- three centers of money, clout and glitter that have sizable black communities. Boston was chosen because Senator Edward Kennedy had extended an invitation to Mandela while he was still in jail. Atlanta was included so that Mandela could visit the grave of King and honor the American civil rights movement. Detroit, Miami and Oakland offered opportunities to pay respects to the labor unions that have been staunch supporters of the antiapartheid movement.

Even with the effort to limit the demands upon his time, there were fears that Mandela would be overtaxed. His crowded American itinerary would test the stamina of a presidential campaigner, much less a frail-looking 71-year-old recovering from surgery to remove a benign cyst from his bladder. Mandela's arrival in New York from Montreal had to be delayed by two hours to give him more time to rest.

There was also some concern within Mandela's entourage that certain American politicians would take advantage of his presence and upstage him. At the top of the list was Jesse Jackson, who had a way of getting into camera range at nearly every point along Mandela's New York route. The New York-based organizers of the Harlem rally made a point of keeping Jackson off the list of speakers, despite his best efforts to be added to the program. It didn't help when the master of ceremonies told the crowd, "I know for many of us it's been a long time since we've really loved a leader."

Like a media-savvy pol -- and a single-minded revolutionary -- Mandela repeated at every opportunity his simple line that because apartheid is still alive and well, it is too soon to reward Pretoria for the reforms De Klerk has made, some of which are more cosmetic than real. Mandela can also hope to return home with several million dollars in new contributions to the A.N.C. In New York a $2,500-a-ticket fund raiser hosted by Eddie Murphy, Spike Lee and Robert De Niro aimed to raise $500,000 from a celebrity crowd that included Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Mike Tyson. At another gathering the same night in the Park Avenue apartment of prominent Democratic Party backers Arthur and Mathilde Krim, a crowd of well-heeled figures from the business world chipped in another $500,000.

By one measure Mandela's trip was a success before he ever set out. "This is the consolidation of the political credibility of the A.N.C.," declares the Rev. William Howard, past president of the National Council of Churches and a 20-year veteran of the antiapartheid fight in the U.S. "Four or five years ago, the very top leadership couldn't even get a meeting with the person on the Africa desk at the State Department. Now the President has invited Mandela to the White House, and everybody wants to meet with him."

But the joyous reception of Mandela was also a rite of self-congratulation for the American civil rights activists who have used the struggle in South Africa as a rallying cry. Such leaders had started to make connections with the battle against apartheid long ago. The American Committee on Africa, the first antiapartheid organization in the U.S., was created in 1953. But it was during the 1980s that civil rights activists discovered in the fight to free Mandela an effort they could throw themselves into with gusto -- and little moral ambiguity.

That discovery came at a time when the Reagan Administration treated the civil rights agenda with indifference, if not outright hostility, and the movement had become fractured over intractable disagreements about increasingly abstract concerns like affirmative action. By comparison, apartheid was an issue as clear-cut and compelling -- and televisable -- as a segregated lunch counter in Birmingham. It offered a focal point for the inchoate resentments many felt of the greed and selfishness spawned during the Reagan years.

As such, the movement to force colleges and universities to divest their holdings in companies that do business in South Africa captured the imagination of the mostly listless campus generation. "The South African issue caught on in 1985 in a way that no issue had since the 1960s," says Robert Price, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. "We were briefly back into a period of politicization and mobilization, which we had not seen since the '70s." By now over 150 colleges, 80 cities, 26 states and 17 counties have divested their stock in companies that do business with South Africa.

It was in 1984 that TransAfrica, a 13-year-old Washington-based lobbying organization, concocted a strategy for broadening the antiapartheid campaign. On Thanksgiving eve, TransAfrica's Robinson; Walter Fauntroy, congressional delegate for the District of Columbia; and Mary Frances Berry, a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, paid a visit to the South African embassy in Washington and refused to leave until Mandela was released and apartheid dismantled. They were arrested.

Over the next five years, more then 4,000 protesters, including Amy Carter, daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, then Senator Lowell Weicker and singer Stevie Wonder, would follow them to jail. Another 5,000 were arrested at South African consulates around the country. By that time the movement had developed powerful friends on Capitol Hill, including Kennedy and his fellow Democratic Senators Alan Cranston of California and Paul Simon of Illinois. They saw in the antiapartheid movement an opportunity to strike a blow against the otherwise unassailable Reagan.

Their triumph came in 1986, with the passage of sanctions. The law banned new U.S. investments in South Africa, prohibited imports of ore and farm products and revoked the landing privileges of South Africa Airways. The sanctions must remain in effect until South Africa releases all political prisoners, repeals the state of emergency in all provinces, legalizes all democratic political parties, establishes a timetable for eliminating apartheid and begins talks with black leaders.

The American coalition's victory was made sweeter because the law was passed over Reagan's veto. It effectively destroyed Reagan's policy of "constructive engagement," which was designed to quietly prod South Africa into making changes without cutting the economic links between the two countries.

Mandela's freedom was for so long the focus of America's antiapartheid movement that some people fear the euphoria over his release will dissipate concern over what remains to be done. Talks between the A.N.C. and Pretoria are not expected to resume until mid-July. In the meantime, whatever hope there may have been in South Africa that Mandela's release would quickly usher in a new multiracial democracy has begun to fade. Now activists say it is important to draw attention to De Klerk's failure to take such steps as lifting the Internal Security Act, which permits thousands of South Africans to be imprisoned without trial. "We have to think about civil disobedience again," says Robinson. "Our challenge is to help Americans distinguish between what is important and what is not."

Still, De Klerk's skillfully orchestrated reforms have stolen some of Mandela's momentum. Just as the black leader headed for North America, the South African President lifted the state of emergency from all provinces except Natal, the site of fierce fighting between A.N.C. militants and supporters of the rival Inkatha movement. Then, on the eve of Mandela's arrival in New York, De Klerk made good on his promise to revoke the Separate Amenities Act that for nearly four decades had legalized segregation. The South African Parliament repealed the law, opening the country's parks, beaches, swimming pools, services and public buildings to the black majority. Though they fail to undo the main structures of apartheid, the reforms are plainly more than mere window dressing.

The prospect of further change that those concessions open up is one reason that Mandela's life -- and De Klerk's -- could be at risk. A South African newspaper, Vrye Weekblad, last week reported that it had uncovered a right- wing plot to murder Mandela, De Klerk and other figures. According to the paper, the plot was worked out by former Nazi Captain Heinrich Beissner, a regional head of the right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement. It called for Mandela to be shot by a sniper at Johannesburg's Jan Smuts Airport when he returned to South Africa on July 18. The Afrikaner group also allegedly planned to blow up power stations, assassinate Members of Parliament and poison the water supply to the black township of Soweto. Though the South African government did confirm that it had arrested eleven whites, it would say only that they were released after questioning.

Mandela is looking for more than courtesy when he meets with George Bush at the White House this week. Though Bush has never supported U.S. sanctions, his Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Herman Cohen, promised in an interview last week that the U.S. "will not act precipitously." But he also said that in the Administration's view, all the legal preconditions for lifting sanctions have been met, except for the release of all prisoners and lifting the state of emergency in the province of Natal. Many members of Congress reply that South Africa has not satisfied a condition spelled out in the sanctions law: substantial progress toward dismantling apartheid.

The betting is that Bush will not loosen sanctions now, in part as a gesture to black voters he is trying to lure to the G.O.P. Mandela's aim is to leave Washington with some sign that the Administration will not retreat from that grudging support. Continued U.S. sanctions would give Mandela a powerful hand to play when he and other A.N.C. officials eventually sit down to negotiations with the Pretoria government. It would also help Mandela when he arrives next week in Britain, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has been anxious to reward South Africa for the gestures De Klerk has made so far.

Meanwhile, the White House is angry at what it sees as an attempt by Democrats and civil rights groups to use Mandela's visit to pressure Bush to put aside his objections to the pending Civil Rights Act of 1990 -- or else force him to endure the embarrassment of vetoing it while Mandela is still in the U.S. The bill seeks to lessen the effect of several recent Supreme Court decisions that diluted existing federal affirmative-action and antidiscrimination law. In particular, the rulings made it harder for victims of discrimination to prove bias and bring lawsuits for redress in court. Bush has insisted that he will veto the bill if it is not amended to correct provisions that he says could have the effect of requiring employers to adopt racial quotas in hiring.

At a White House meeting with G.O.P. lawmakers last week, chief of staff John Sununu worried out loud that the bill could be brought for a vote soon in the Senate. "The White House is apoplectic about the bill coming up while Mandela is in town," says one participant in the talks. Soon after, the Senate decided to take a preliminary vote on the bill just 20 minutes before Mandela appears to address a joint session of Congress.

At the invitation of the White House, representatives of civil rights groups began talks with the White House last month to frame a compromise bill that Bush could sign. But with the White House still having failed to put forward any alternative language, the civil rights groups are saying privately that they may withdraw from the talks, which they charge may be no more than an Administration device to delay Senate action on the bill.

As the showdown on the civil rights bill demonstrates, Mandela's presence in the U.S. throws a sharper light on domestic racial matters. At the first stop on his itinerary, the mostly black Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, the crowd needed little encouragement to draw comparisons between the problems of South African blacks and their own dilemmas. As he spoke about the inadequacy of schools for blacks in South Africa, some of his listeners shouted back, "Same here!" When he went on to complain that in South Africa whites control the education of blacks, others in the crowd picked up the chant: "Same here, same here!"

Such powerful emotional connections are likely to ensure that the U.S. keeps up the pressure as Mandela wages his battle against apartheid. But at the same time that his legend grows here, the realities of day-to-day political struggle have cut into his popularity at home, even among those whose aspirations he has spent half a lifetime representing. Were he to become the first elected black leader of postapartheid South Africa, the resulting immersion in the messy doings of government could make things still more trying for him. Knowing that he remains a hero in America could help to sustain him if those difficult days ever come.